An Eye for an Eye

Dances:  Quickstep, Tango, Foxtrot, Waltz
Part:  Lead
Workout:  Arms & back at the gym.
Happy Hour:  The Parlor - Blackened Chicken Pita & Hot Wings
Floors Mopped Today:  1

As with any Thursday, it marks the beginning of the end of the week.  This means that by that day, my body is pretty well trashed from all the working out and the dance practices.  At least I know I'm really pushing myself to my limit and that the bar is getting set higher each week.  Today was arms and back day, so I went about my usual routine.  Sarah decided to join me at first, then found out what a bad idea it was.  She punked out halfway through.  I don't think she got enough sleep nor had enough calories to workout.  I, on the other hand, had a steak a few hours before the gym which significantly improved my performance.  I'm going to have to start doing that from now on.  From my previous experience of working out, your diet really impacts how well you perform.  Unfortunately, eating right isn't cheap.  In fact it's more expensive than eating out at nice restaurants all the time.  Not to mention how much more (both in quantity and frequency) you need to eat.  Note to self:  Add bananas to your diet.  My calves were not too happy today, and I'm betting it's the lack of potassium.

Practice today was interesting again.  Not in the practice itself, but in the company.  There was a salsa/mambo trio in there doing their thing (I believe it was some sort of lesson).  Shaoshu showed up to practice with us.  And to top it off the bikini girls were there again!  Different bikinis this time, but just as distracting as before.  So it was interesting having to navigate between the three groups.  I think we've started a trend at the gym.  That rooms seems to have gotten busier since we started using it.  Only time will tell though.

Quickstep was our main focus today.  Specifically the Rumba Cross section.  To be honest, I think that with practice and all of our work in the other dances, somehow our Rumba Cross has managed to get worse.  It seems to be the only thing that has though.  We ran through it quite a bit slowly and I think we're getting back to where it used to be.  Not sure what could've caused the decline.

In between practicing parts of our routine, we danced some mambo and salsa since we were sharing the music with that group in there.  Sarah had a hell of a time getting used to breaking on the two for mambo.  And after a few bars she was back to breaking on one again.  All in all, pretty funny.

Tango was our secondary objective and it went really well.  We tried it to the new Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack which features the work of an unbeatable combination: Hans Zimmer and Rodrigo Y Gabriela.  It's slower than competition tango tempo, but definitely an awesome show piece.  I'm really working on making my tango "less polite", in other words, more dramatic and snappier.  So far so good, but there is a long ways to go yet.  Still too polite.

As we were leaving today, Sarah went to give me a hug as usual and Shaoshu complete misread it thinking the hug was meant for him.  So he went to hug jack me and in the process got Sarah's keys in his eye.  Luckily no one was hurt, but it was damn funny.  Especially Shaoshu's monotone "Owww".